


Where the dragon mourns

by orphan_account



Series: The life and Times of Jon Targaryen [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 23:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhaegar made a mistake.<br/>And now he must find redemption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the dragon mourns

"Lyanna is dead."

Ned Stark's voice cuts through the haze in his mind. It is sharp, crisp and lined with grief. It is different from the crippling blow that Oberyn had dealt three months ago, but stung no less. 

"You utter Bastard!" He had screamed. "Curse you to the pits of hell for what you've done!" He hadn't said a word then, taken it as it was. He was still clinging to the hope that Lyanna was alive and well.  _"You're carrying my child, I need you to be away from all this."_ He had wanted a third child for the prophesy.  _A Visenya._ He'd never meant to get involved. 

But Lyanna Stark was that girl you could never help loving. That girl who grew on you no matter how you tried to push her away. She should have been happy, with a nice husband, and a pretty daughter, and maybe one or two clever little boys, with a long life ahead of her. 

 _I should not have meddled with her life. Forgive me Lyanna Stark._ It hurt that he was more repentant of what he did to Lyanna than he was of the grief he brought Elia and his trueborn babes with his betrayal. 

But when Ned Stark had called into to tell him that she was dead, something inside him fell apart. Something small and unimaginably fragile. 

 _Breathe, Rhaegar._ He told himself.  _Breathe._ Think of Visenya.

"What about the baby?" He asked, softly. He can feel the hitch in Ned Stark's breathe. "What about my daughter?" 

The reply is a short, bitter laugh. "So it  _was_ the prophesy that drove you to it. She knew that, you know. But she loved you. In the end, she loved you. Haemorrhage. That's what killed her. They couldn't do anything. Premature labour." Ned Stark paused. Rhaegar hung onto the phone for dear life. "My sister died two months ago, holding her only child. Her son."

A boy. Lyanna had a boy. And Lyanna was dead. 

There was no Visenya. Only a boy. 

 _So this is your punishment, Rhaegar Targaryen. Your prophecy, lost and your legacy in ashes.  
_ Only Lyanna did not have to pay for it with blood. Nor Elia with life. 

He thinks of the Lannister boy, quailing under Oberyn's gaze. "I'm sorry, I tried. Please...." He thinks of Egg and Rhae waiting for someone to reassure them. Pycelle assured him that the children would suffer little lasting trauma, but these months would leave a dark stain on their lives. He'd never be able to look them in the eye. 

And this new baby.

He'd grow up without a mother. And considering that the said mother was Lyanna, it was a grievous loss indeed. He wondered who he was like, this son of his. Was he dark like his mum, or fair like him? 

A boy. A son.

_His son._

All of a sudden he's furious. Furious at all that has happened to them, furious at his own folly and his unwarranted love for Lyanna Stark. Furious that Eddard Stark had his son, and was only telling him  _now._

"Is there anything else you need to tell me? Does my son have a name?" "There's a heartbeat pause. 

"Yes. His name is Jon."

 

Jon Targaryen was the most beautiful baby he'd clapped his eyes on, and no he was not being partial. He was small, and fragile with a mop of thick brown curls nestling on a pale forehead. His nose and chin were sharp as any baby's ever got, and when he opened his eyes, they were grey and intelligent and the best of both his parents.

Lyanna's eyes. Rhaegar's gaze. 

Lyanna's mouth, Rhaegar's smile.

Lyanna's face. Rhaegar's expression. 

"He's beautiful," he had whispered reverentially, when Catelyn Stark placed Jon in his arms. "That he is." She had replied. "And calm too, quiet if you will. He's frightfully like Ned in that way." Rhaegar raises his head to sneak a glance at Eddard Stark, who was watching him sharply, as if he'd drop the child.

 _Cut it out Stark._ He wants to scream.  _He's my son. My son. My redemption._  Because what else could he be, this silent baby, this motherles pup?

He steels himself to meet Ned Stark's eyes. Grey like Lyanna's.  _Like Jon's._

"Thank you." He says, and walks out the door.

 

Of course it is safe to say that he was the most incompetent of parents. Too solemn, too serious, too brooding.

Too alone.

And of course he'd made a right mess of it. He wasn't Eddard Stark. Not the honourable, guilt free, right doing man, faithful to wife and honour. The one with five children.

 _You don't have to be Ned Stark to be a good father._ His gaze shifts to the picture Daenerys had sent him years ago, the one he kept with him. Dany, smiling on Storm's End beach hugging the black haired baby to her chest. "Me and Shireen" The picture proclaimed. Rhaegar feels a pang of grief when he thinks of his sister. The one who knew him not, the one he knew not.

The girl who grew up calling another man "Father." 

Then again, Stannis Baratheon had proved thousand times a better father than he could have hoped to be.

_"Daenerys is a child, born months after your so-called rebellion, and she is my blood, the daughter of my Aunt Rhaella. I would inform you now, that should any of you be taking her existence through the grindstone you call tabloid media, there will be severe repercussions. What happened before her birth was no fault of hers and I will not have you casting your base speculations over her head."_

He'd been grim as the gargoyles on the keep of Dragonstone Naval University. Rhaegar shudders at the memory. As does Robert Baratheon. Often. And most media personnel. 

At least he succeeded where Rhaegar Targaryen failed. The press went crazy with Jon. 

_Jon T; Druggie?_

_Jon T; Underage sex junkie._

_Rhaegar's son, hot drunk mess!_

It hurt Jon and he never knew how to handle it. Or Jon. Never ever.

And Ned Stark never forgave him for it. 

And now, here they were. With his son, trying to run away north, trying to be a Stark, when he was more Targaryen than either of his siblings. 

Trying to join the Night's Watch.

In another life, he would have delighted in sending his son to take the black. In seeing one of his sons fulfilling the Targaryen prophesy, the famous one, made by the reknowned fortune teller a hundred years ago. But not now. Never now.

_The prince that was promised will be born amidst salt and smoke...._

It was a lie. It had always been a lie. As prophesies were wont to be. But he, more the fool he, had believed it, and now here he was. Widowed, lost and his family destroyed. And the media had labelled him as mad as his father. 

_Really, what kind of man believes in prophesies in this enlightened era?_

He didn't want Jon at the Wall. For one thing they'd all think he'd been sent there by force and that Rhaegar was still mad about his prophesy. They'd hound after Jon, make his career their chew toy, and being the tabloid target Targaryen anyway, he'd have hell with it.

But more importantly, he didn't want Jon Targaryen, who looked more Ned Stark than, Rhaegar Targaryen, to end up becoming Ned Stark's son in all but name. 

 _You are MY son!_ He wanted to scream.  _MY baby! I am your father, not Eddard Stark!_ But Rhaegar Targaryen does not scream. 

And perhaps he deserves it. His son was his second chance, and he, in his regret, his inabilty to let go of the past, had failed. Again. 

"You know, had any reporter ever written something like that about Dany, Stannis and Mel would have disembowelled him faster than you could say Dragonstone." Rhaenys had informed him once, when they were staring at a disgusting piece, questioning his son's mental health. She had been disgusted at his silence, and as Aegon tried to break down Jon's door, she'd sat with him, her eyes calling him a craven.

_I am what I am, children. Were I not, you would not be here. Motherless and half lost._

But now, Jon's acceptance letter floats in front of his eyes. 

_Castle Black. The night's watch. Signed, Jeor Mormont and Aemon Targaryen._

His son was asking leave to let go of their family, just as Uncle Aemon had many years ago. He could not let that happen.

_Ha, you're one to talk. Remind the rest of us how Jon came to be born? He's not running after a prophesy, in any case he may never know about it._

His son was taking the black. Embracing his Stark lineage. Perhaps it was meant to be. He was, after all, Lyanna's son. And stubbornness aside, there was little of Lyanna inside their son. Perhaps this was Lyanna's memory bearing down on both of them.

_I never spoke to him about Lyanna. I never told him she loved me._

He crushes the letter in his hand, and goes about his business as he always does. 

And when, two weeks later, his son stands at the door of his study, bags packed with that dog on leash and Robb Stark waiting in the kitchen, chatting up (or being chatted up by) Rhaenys, he says nothing. Though he wants to.

_Don't go Jon, you're meant for something greater than that._

_You belong here, not up North._

_You are not a bastard Jon, you are my son._

He does not tell his son that he loved her in return. 


End file.
